Chapter 7

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_ CHAPTER VII

An electric lamp was burning in the hallway; he threw open the connecting doors of the studio where a light gleamed high on the ceiling, and stood aside for her to pass him.

She stepped across the threshold into the subdued radiance, stood for a moment undecided, then:

"Are you coming in?" she asked, cheerfully, quite aware of his ill-temper. "Because if you are, you may take off my coat for me."

He crossed the threshold in silence, and divested her of the fur garment which was all sparkling with melting snow.

"Do let's enjoy the firelight," she said, turning out the single ceiling lamp; "and please find some nice, big crackly logs for the fire, Kelly!--there's a treasure!"

His frowning visage said: "Don't pretend that it's all perfectly pleasant between us"; but he turned without speaking, cleared a big arm-chair of its pile of silks, velvets, and antique weapons, and pushed it to the edge of the hearth. Every movement he made, his every attitude was characterised by a sulky dignity which she found rather funny, now that the first inexplicable consternation of meeting him had subsided. And already she was wondering just what it was that had startled her; why she had left the cafe with him; why _he_ had left; why he seemed to be vexed with her. For her conscience, in regard to him, was perfectly clear and serene.

"Now the logs, Kelly, dear," she said, "the kind that catch fire in a second and make frying-pan music, please."

He laid three or four logs of yellow birch across the bed of coals. The blaze caught swiftly, mounting in a broad sheet of yellow flame, making their faces brilliant in the darkness; and the tall shadows leaped across floor and wall and towered, wavering above them from the ruddy ceiling.

"Kelly!"

"What?"

"I wish you a Happy New Year."

"Thank you. I wish you the same."

"Come over here and curl up on the hearth and drop your head back on my knees, and tell me what is the trouble--you sulky boy!"

He did not appear to hear her.

"Please?--" with a slight rising inflection.

"What is the use of pretending?" he said, shortly.

"Pretending!" she repeated, mimicking him delightedly. Then with a clear, frank laugh: "Oh, you great, big infant! The idea of _you_ being the famous painter Louis Neville! I wish there was a nursery here. I'd place you in it and let you pout!"

"That's more pretence," he said, "and you know it."

"What silly things you do say, Louis! As though people could find life endurable if they did not pretend. Of course I'm pretending. And if a girl pretends hard enough it sometimes comes true."

"What comes true?"

"Ah!--you ask me too much.... Well, for example, if I pretend I don't mind your ill-temper it _may_ come true that you will be amiable to me before I go home."

There was no smile from him, no response. The warmth of the burning logs deepened the colour in her cold cheeks. Snow crystals on her dark hair melted into iris-rayed drops. She stretched her arms to the fire, and her eyes fell on Gladys and her kitten, slumbering, softly embraced.

"Oh, do look, Kelly! How perfectly sweet and cunning! Gladys has her front paws right around the kitten's neck."

Impulsively she knelt down, burying her face in the fluffy heap; the kitten partly opened its bluish eyes; the mother-cat stretched her legs, yawned, glanced up, and began to lick the kitten, purring loudly.

For a moment or two the girl caressed the drowsy cats, then, rising, she resumed her seat, sinking back deeply into the arm-chair and casting a sidelong and uncertain glance at Neville.

The flames burned steadily, noiselessly, now; nothing else stirred in the studio; there was no sound save the ghostly whisper of driving snow blotting the glass roof above.

Her gaze wandered over the silken disorder in the studio, arrested here and there as the firelight gleamed on bits of armour--on polished corselet and helmet and the tall hilts of swords. Then she looked upward where the high canvas loomed a vast expanse of gray, untouched except for the brushed-in outlines of men in shadowy processional.

She watched Neville, who had begun to prowl about in the disorder of the place, stepping over trailing velvets, avoiding manikins armed cap-a-pie, moving restlessly, aimlessly. And her eyes followed his indecision with a smile that gradually became perplexed and then a little troubled.

For even in the uncertain firelight she was aware of the change in his face--of features once boyish and familiar that seemed now to have settled into a sterner, darker mould--a visage that was too lean for his age--a face already haunted of shadows; a mature face--the face of a man who had known unhappiness.

He had paused, now, head lifted, eyes fixed on vast canvas above. And for a long while he stood there leaning sideways against a ladder, apparently oblivious of her.

Time lagged, halted--then sped forward, slyly robbing him of minutes of which his senses possessed no record. But minutes had come and gone while he stood there thinking, unconscious of the trick time played him--for the fire was already burning low again and the tall clock in the shadows pointed with stiff and ancient hands to the death of another hour and the birth of yet another; and the old-time bell chimed impartially for both with a shift and slide of creaking weights and wheels.

He lifted his head abruptly and looked at Valerie, who lay curled up in her chair, eyes closed, dark lashes resting on her cheeks.

As he passed her chair and returned to place more logs on the fire she opened her eyes and looked up at him. The curve of her mouth grew softly humorous.

"I'd much prefer my own bed," she said, "if this is all you have to say to me."

"Had you anything to say to me?" he asked, unsmiling.

"About what, Kelly, dear?"

"God knows; I don't."

"Listen to this very cross and cranky young man!" she exclaimed, sitting up and winking her eyes in the rushing brilliancy of the blaze. "He is neither a very gracious host, nor a very reasonable one; nor yet particularly nice to a girl who left a perfectly good party for an hour with him."

She stole a glance at him, and her gaze softened:

"Perhaps," she said aloud to herself, "he is not really very cross; perhaps he is only tired--or in trouble. Otherwise his voice and manners are scarcely pardonable--even by me."

He stood regarding the flames with narrowing gaze for a few moments, then, hands in his pockets, walked over to his chair once more and dropped into it.

A slight flush stole into her cheeks; but it went as it came. She rose, crossed to where he sat and stood looking down at him.

"What _is_ the matter?"

"With me?" in crude pretence of surprise.

"Of course. I am happy enough. What troubles _you_?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"Then--what troubles _us_?" she persisted. "What has gone wrong between us, Kelly, dear? Because we mustn't let it, you know," she added, slowly, shaking her head.

"Has anything gone wrong with us?" he asked, sullenly.

"Evidently. I don't know what it is. I'm keeping my composure and controlling my temper until I find out. You know what that dreadful temper of mine can be?" She added, smiling: "Well, then, please beware of it unless you are ready to talk sensibly. Are you?"

"What is it you wish me to say?"

"How perfectly horrid you can be!" she exclaimed, "I never knew you could be like this? Do you want a girl to go on her knees to you? I care enough for our friendship to do it--but I won't!"

Her mood was altering:

"You're a brute, Kelly, to make me miserable. I was having such a good time at the Gigolette when I suddenly saw you--your expression--and--I don't even yet know why, but every bit of joy went out of everything for me--"

"_I_ was going out, too," he said, laughing. "Why didn't you remain? Your gay spirits would have returned untroubled after my departure."

There was an ugly sound to his laugh which checked her, left her silent for a moment. Then:

"Did you disapprove of me?" she asked, curiously. "Was that it?"

"No. You can take care of yourself, I fancy."

"I have had to," she said, gravely.

He was silent.

She added with a light laugh not perfectly genuine:

"I suppose I am experiencing with you what all mortals experience when they become entangled with the gods."

"What is that?"

"Unhappiness. All the others experienced it--Proserpine, Helen, poor little Psyche--every nice girl who ever became mixed up with the Olympians had a bad half hour of it sooner or later. And to-night the great god Kelly has veiled his face from me, and I'm on my knees at his altar sacrificing every shred of sweet temper to propitiate him. Now, mighty and sulky oracle! _what_ has happened to displease you?"

He said: "If there seems to be any constraint--if anything has altered our pleasant intimacy, I don't know what it is any more than you do, Valerie."

"Then there _is_ something!"

"I have not said so."

"Well, then, I say so," she said, impatiently. "And I say, also, that whatever threatens our excellent understanding ought to be hunted out and destroyed. Shall we do it together, Louis?"

He said nothing.

"Come to the fire and talk it over like two sensible people. Will you? And please pull that sofa around to the blaze for me. Thank you. This, Kelly, is our bed of justice."

She drew the cushions under her head and nestled down in the full warmth of the hearth.

"_Le lit de justice_," she repeated, gaily. "Here I preside, possessing inquisitorial power and prerogative, and exercising here to-night the high justice, the middle, and the low. Now hale before me those skulking knaves, Doubt, Suspicion, and Distrust, and you and I will make short work of them. Pull 'em along by their ears, Louis! This Court means to sit all night if necessary!"

She laughed merrily, raised herself on one arm, and looked him straight in the eyes:

"Louis!"

"What?"

"Do you doubt me?"

"Doubt what?"

"That my friendship for you is as warm as the moment it began?"

He said, unsmiling: "People meet as we met, become friends--very good, very close friends--in that sort of friendship which is governed by chance and environment. The hazard that throws two people into each other's company is the same hazard that separates them. It is not significant either way.... I liked you--missed you.... Our companionship had been pleasant."

"Very," she said, quietly.

He nodded: "Then chance became busy; your duties led you elsewhere--mine set me adrift in channels once familiar--"

"Is that all you see in our estrangement?"

"What?" he asked, abruptly.

"Estrangement," she repeated, tranquilly. "That is the real word for it. Because the old intimacy is gone. And now we both admit it."

"We have had no opportunity to be together this--"

"We once _made_ opportunities."

"We have had no time--"

"We halted time, hastened it, dictated to it, ruled it--once."

"Then explain it otherwise if you can."

"I am trying to--with God's help. Will you aid me, too?"

Her sudden seriousness and emotion startled him.

"Louis, if our estrangement is important enough for us to notice at all, it is important enough to analyse, isn't it?"

"I have analysed the reasons--"

"Truthfully?"

"I think so--as far as I have gone--"

"Let us go farther, then--to the end."

"But there is no particular significance--"

"Isn't there?"

"I don't know. After all, _why_ did you leave that cafe? Why did _I_? Why are we together, now--here in your studio, and utterly miserable at one o'clock of the New Year's morning? For you and I are unhappy and ill at ease; and you and I are talking at cross purposes, groping, evading, fencing with words. If there is nothing significant in the friendship we gave each other from the hour we met--it is not worth the self-deception you are content with."

"Self-deception!" he repeated, flushing up.

"Yes. Because you do care more for me than what you have said about our friendship indicates.... And I care more for your regard than you seem willing to recognise--"

"I am very glad to--"

"Listen, Kelly. Can't we be honest with ourselves and with each other? Because--our being here, now--my leaving that place in the way I did--surprises me. I want to find out why there has been confusion, constraint, somewhere--there is _something_ to clear up between us--I have felt that, vaguely, at moments; now I _know_ it. Let us try to find out what it is, what is steadily undermining our friendship."

"Nothing, Valerie," he said, smiling. "I am as fond of you as ever. Only you have found time for other friendships. Your life has become more interesting, fuller, happier--"

"Not happier. I realise that, now, as you say it." She glanced around her; swiftly her dark eyes passed over things familiar. "I was happier here than I have ever been in all my life," she said. "I love this room--and everything in it. You know I do, Louis. But I couldn't very well come here when you were using all those models. If you think that I have neglected you, it is a silly and unfair thing to think. If I did neglect you I couldn't help it. And you didn't seem to care."

He shrugged and looked up at the outlined men's figures partly covering the canvas above them. Her gaze followed his, then again she raised herself on one elbow and looked around her, searching with quick eyes among the shadows.

"Where is my portrait?"

"Behind the tapestry."

"Have you abandoned it?"

"I don't know."

Her smile became tremulous: "Are you going to abandon the original, too?"

"I never possessed very much of you, did I?" he said, sulkily; and looked up at her quick exclamation of anger and surprise.

"What do you mean? You had all of me worth having--" there came a quick catch, in her throat--"you had all there is to me--confidence in you, gratitude for your friendship, deep, happy response to your every mood--my unquestioning love and esteem--"

"Your _love_?" he repeated, with an unpleasant laugh.

"What else do you call it?" she demanded, fiercely. "Is there a name less hackneyed for it? If there is, teach it to me. Yet--if ever a girl truly loved a man, I have loved you. And I do love you, dearly, honestly, cleanly, without other excuse than that, until to-night, you have been sweet to me and made me happier and better than I have ever been."

He sprang to his feet confused, deeply moved, suddenly ashamed of his own inexplicable attitude that seemed to be driving him into a bitterness that had no reason.

"Valerie," he began, but she interrupted him:

"I ask you, Kelly, to look back with me over our brief and happy companionship--over the hours together, over all you have done for me--"

"Have you done less for me?"

"I? What have I done?"

"You say you have given me--love."

"I have--with all my heart and soul. And, now that I think of it, I have given you more--I have given you all that goes with love--an unselfish admiration; a quick sympathy in your perplexities; quiet solicitude in your silences, in your aloof and troubled moments." She leaned nearer, a brighter flush on either cheek:

"Louis, I have given you more than that; I gave you my bodily self for your work--gave it to _you_ first of all--came first of all to you--came as a novice, ignorant, frightened--and what you did for me then--what you were to me at that time--I can never, never forget. And that is why I overlook your injustice to me now!"

She sat up on the sofa's edge balanced forward between her arms, fingers nervously working at the silken edges of the upholstery.

"You ought never to have doubted my interest and affection," she said. "In my heart I have not doubted yours--never--except to-night. And it makes me perfectly wretched."

"I did not mean--"

"Yes, you did! There was something about you--your expression--when you saw me throwing roses at everybody--that hurt me--and you meant to."

"With Querida's arm around you, did you expect me to smile?" he asked, savagely.

"Was it _that_?" she demanded, astonished.

"What?"

"Querida's arm--" She hesitated, gazing straight into his eyes in utter amazement.

"It wasn't _that_?" she repeated. "Was it?... You never cared about such petty things, did you? _Did_ you? _Do_ you care? Because I never dreamed that you cared.... What has a little imprudence--a little silly mischief--to do with our friendship? _Has_ it anything to do with it? You've never said anything--and ... I've flirted--I've been spoons on men--you knew it. Besides, I've nearly always told you. I've told you without thinking it could possibly matter to you--to _you_ of all men! What do you care what I do?--as long as I am to you what I have always been?"

"I--_don't_--care."

"Of course not. How _can_ you?" She leaned nearer, dark and curious gaze searching his. Then, with a nervous laugh voicing the impossible--"_You_ are not in love with me--that way. Are you?" she asked, scarcely realising what she was saying.

"No," he said, forcing a smile. "Are you with _me_?"

She flushed scarlet:

"Kelly, I never thought--dreamed--hoped--" Her voice caught in her throat a moment; "I--such a matter has not occurred to me." She looked at him partly dismayed, partly confused, unable now to understand him--or even herself.

"You know--that kind of love--" she began--"_real_ love, never has happened to me. You didn't think _that_, did you?--because--just because I did flirt a little with you? It didn't mean anything serious--anything of _that_ kind. Kelly, dear, _have_ you mistaken me? Is _that_ what annoys you? Were you afraid I was silly enough, mad enough to--to really think of you--in that way?"

"No."

"Oh, I was sure you couldn't believe it of me. See how perfectly frank and honest I have been with you. Why, you never were sentimental--and a girl isn't unless a man begins it! You never kissed me--except last summer when you were going away--and both of our hearts were pretty full--"

"Wait," he said, suddenly exasperated, "are you trying to make me understand that you haven't the slightest real emotion concerning me--concerning me as a _man_--like other men?"

She looked at him, still confused and distressed, still determined he should not misunderstand her:

"I don't know what you mean; truly I don't. I'm only trying to make you believe that I am not guilty of thinking--wishing--of pretending that in our frank companionship there lay concealed anything of--of deeper significance--"

"Suppose--it were true?" he said.

"But it is _not_ true!" she retorted angrily--and looked up, caught his gaze, and her breath failed her.

"Suppose it were true--for example," he repeated. "Suppose you did find that you or I were capable of--deeper--"

"Louis! Louis! Do you realise what you are saying to me? Do you understand what you are doing to the old order of things between us--to the old confidences, the old content, the happiness, the--the innocence of our life together? _Do_ you? Do you even _care_?"

"Care? Yes--I care."

"Because," she said, excitedly, "if it is to be--_that_ way with you--I--I can not help you--be of use to you here in the studio as I have been.... _Am_ I taking you too seriously? You do not mean that you _really_ could ever love me, or I you, do you? You mean that--that you just want me back again--as I was--as we were--perfectly content to be together. That is what you mean, isn't it, Kelly, dear?" she asked, piteously.

He looked into her flushed and distressed face:

"Yes," he said, "that is exactly what I mean, Valerie--you dear, generous, clear-seeing girl! I just wanted you back again; I miss you; I am perfectly wretched without you, and that is all the trouble. Will you come?"

"I--don't--know. Why did you say such a thing?"

"Forgive me, dear!"

She slowly shook her head:

"You've made me think of--things," she said. "You shouldn't ever have done it."

"Done what, Valerie?"

"What you did--what you said--which makes it impossible for me to--to ever again be what I have been to you--even pose for you--as I did--"

"You mean that you won't pose for me any more?" he asked, aghast.

"Only--in costume." She sat on the edge of the sofa, head averted, looking steadily down at the hearth below. There was a pink spot on either cheek.

He thought a moment. "Valerie," he said, "I believe we had better finish what we have only begun to say."

"Is there--anything more?" she asked, unsmiling.

"Ask yourself. Do you suppose things can be left this way between us--all the happiness and the confidence--and the innocence, as you say, destroyed?"

"What more is there to say," she demanded, coldly.

"Shall--I--say it?" he stammered.

She looked up, startled, scarcely recognising the voice as his--scarcely now recognising his altered features.

"What _is_ the matter with you?" she exclaimed nervously.

"Good God," he said, hoarsely, "can't you see I've gone quite mad about you!"

"About--_me_!" she repeated, blankly.

"About _you_--Valerie West. Can't you see it? Didn't you know it? Hasn't it been plain enough to you--even if it hasn't been to me?"

"Louis! Louis!" she cried in hurt astonishment, "what have you said to me?"

"That I'm mad about you, and I am. And it's been so--for months--always--ever since the very first! I must have been crazy not to realise it. I've been fool enough not to understand what has been the matter. Now you know the truth, Valerie!" He sprang to his feet, took a short turn or two before the hearth, then, catching sight of her face in its colourless dismay and consternation:

"I suppose you don't care a damn for me--that way!" he said, with a mirthless laugh.

"What!" she whispered, bewildered by his violence. Then: "Do you mean that you are in _love_ with me!"

"Utterly, hopelessly--" his voice broke and he stood with hands clenched, unable to utter a word.

She sat up very straight and pale, the firelight gleaming on her neck and shoulders. After a moment his voice came back to his choked throat:

"I love you better than anything in the world." he said in unsteady tones. "And _that_ is what has come between us. Do you think it is something we had better hunt down and destroy--this love that has come between us?"

"Is--is that _true_?" she asked in the awed voice of a child.

"It seems to be," he managed to say. She slid stiffly to the floor and stood leaning against the sofa's edge, looking at him wide-eyed as a schoolgirl.

"It never occurred to you what the real trouble might be," he asked, "did it?"

She shook her head mechanically.

"Well, we know now. Your court of inquiry has brought out the truth after all."

She only stared at him, fascinated. No colour had returned to her cheeks.

He began to pace the hearth again, lip caught savagely between his teeth.

"You are no more amazed than I am to learn the truth," he said. "I never supposed it was that.... And it's been that from the moment I laid eyes on you. I know it now. I'm learning, you see--learning not to lie to myself or to you.... Learning other things, too--God knows what--if this is love--this utter--suffering--"

He swung on his heel and began to pace the glimmering tiles toward her:

"Discontent, apathy, unhappiness, loneliness--the hidden ache which merely meant I missed you when you were not here--when I was not beside you--all these are now explained before your bed of justice. Your court has heard the truth to-night; and you, Valerie, are armed with justice--the high, the middle, and the low."

Pale, mute, she raised her dark eyes and met his gaze.

In the throbbing silence he heard his heart heavy in his breast; and now she heard her own, rapid, terrifying her, hurrying her she knew not whither. And again, trembling, she covered her eyes with her hands.

"Valerie," he said, in anguish, "come back to me. I will not ask you to love me if you cannot. Only come back. I--can't--endure it--without you."

There was no response.

He stepped nearer, touched her hands, drew them from her face--revealing its pallid loveliness--pressed them to his lips, to his face; drew them against his own shoulders--closer, till they fell limply around his neck.

She uttered a low cry: "Louis!" Then:

"It--it is all over--with us," she faltered. "I--had never thought of you--this way."

"Can you think of me this way, now?"

"I--can't help it."

"Dearest--dearest--" he stammered, and kissed her unresponsive lips, her throat, her hair. She only gazed silently at the man whose arms held her tightly imprisoned.

Under the torn lace and silk one bare shoulder glimmered; and he kissed it, touched the pale veins with his lips, drew the arm from his neck and kissed elbow, wrist, and palm, and every slender finger; and still she looked at him as though dazed. A lassitude, heavy, agreeable to endure, possessed her. She yielded to the sense of fatigue--to the confused sweetness that invaded her; every pulse in her body beat its assent, every breath consented.

"Will you try to care for me, Valerie?"

"You know I will."

"With all your heart?" he asked, trembling.

"I do already."

"Will you give yourself to me?"

There was a second's hesitation; then with a sudden movement she dropped her face on his shoulder. After a moment her voice came, very small, smothered:

"What did you mean, Louis?"

"By what--my darling?"

"By--my giving myself--to you?"

"I mean that I want you always," he said in a happy, excited voice that thrilled her. But she looked up at him, still unenlightened.

"I don't quite understand," she said--"but--" and her voice fell so low he could scarcely hear it--"I am--not afraid--to love you."

"Afraid!" He stood silent a moment, then: "What did you think I meant, Valerie? I want you to _marry_ me!"

She flushed and laid her cheek against his shoulder, striving to think amid the excited disorder of her mind, the delicious bewilderment of her senses--strove to keep clear one paramount thought from the heavenly confusion that was invading her, carrying her away, sweeping her into paradise--struggled to keep that thought intact, uninfluenced, and cling to it through everything that threatened to overwhelm her.

Her slim hands resting in his, her flushed face on his breast, his words ringing in her ears, she strove hard, hard! to steady herself. Because already she knew what her decision must be--what her love for him had always meant in the days when that love had been as innocent as friendship. And even now there was little in it except innocence; little yet of passion. It was still only a confused, heavenly surprise, unvexed, and, alas! unterrified. The involuntary glimpse of any future for it or for her left her gaze dreamy, curious, but unalarmed. The future he had offered her she would never accept; no other future frightened her.

"Louis?"

"Dearest," he whispered, his lips to hers.

"It is sweet of you, it is perfectly dear of you to wish me to be your--wife. But--let us decide such questions later--"

"Valerie! What do you mean?"

"I didn't mean that I don't love you," she said, tremulously. "I believe you scarcely understand how truly I do love you.... As a matter of fact, I have always been in love with you without knowing it. You are not the only fool," she said, with a confused little laugh.

"You darling!"

She smiled again uncertainly and shook her head:

"I truly believe I have always been in love with you.... Now that I look back and consider, I am sure of it." She lifted her pretty head and gazed at him, then with a gay little laugh of sheer happiness almost defiant: "You see I am not afraid to love you," she said.

"Afraid? Why should you be?" he repeated, watching her expression.

"Because--I am not going to marry you," she announced, gaily.

He stared at her, stunned.

"Listen, you funny boy," she added, framing his face with her hands and smiling confidently into his troubled eyes: "I am not afraid to love you because I never was afraid to face the inevitable. And the inevitable confronts me now. And I know it. But I will not marry you, Louis. It is good of you, dear of you to ask it. But it is too utterly unwise. And I will not."

"Why?"

"Because," she said, frankly, "I love you better than I do myself." She forced another laugh, adding: "Unlike the gods, whom I love I do not destroy."

"That is a queer answer, dear--"

"Is it? Because I say I love you better than I do myself? Why, Louis, all the history of my friendship for you has been only that. Have you ever seen anything selfish in my affection for you?".

"Of course not, but--"

"Well, then! There isn't one atom of it in my love for you, either. And I love you dearly--dearly! But I'm not selfish enough to marry you. Don't scowl and try to persuade me, Louis, I've a perfectly healthy mind of my own, and you know it--and it's absolutely clear on that subject. You must be satisfied with what I offer--every bit of love that is in me--" She hesitated, level eyed and self-possessed, considering him with the calm gaze of a young goddess:

"Dear," she went on, slowly, "let us end this marriage question once and for all. You can't take me out of my world into yours without suffering for it. Because your world is full of women of your own kind--mothers, sisters, relatives, friends.... And all your loyalty, all your tact, all _their_ tact and philosophy, too, could not ease one moment in life for you if I were unwise enough to go with you into that world and let you try to force them to accept me."

"_I tell you_," he began, excitedly, "that they must accept--"

"Hush!" she smiled, placing her hand gently across his lips; "with all your man's experience you are only a man; but I _know_ how it is with women. I have no illusions, Louis. Even by your side, and with the well-meant kindness of your family to me, you would suffer; and I have not the courage to let you--even for love's sake."

"You are entirely mistaken--" he broke out; but she silenced him with a pretty gesture, intimate, appealing, a little proud.

"No, I am not mistaken, nor am I likely to deceive myself that any woman of your world could ever consider me of it--or could ever forgive you for taking me there. And that means spoiling life for you. And I will not!"

"Then they can eliminate me, also!" he said, impatiently.

"What logic! When I have tried _so_ hard to make you understand that I will not accept any sacrifice from you!"

"It is no sacrifice for me to give up such a--"

"You say very foolish and very sweet things to me, Louis, but I could not love you enough to make up to you your unhappiness at seeing me in your world and not a part of it. Ah, the living ghosts of that world, Louis! Yet _I_ could endure it for myself--a woman can endure anything when she loves; and find happiness, too--if only the man she loves is happy. But, for a man, the woman is never entirely sufficient. My position in your world would anger you, humiliate you, finally embitter you. And I could not live if sorrow came to you through me."

"You are bringing sorrow on me with every word--"

"No, dear. It hurts for a moment. Then wisdom will heal it. You do not believe what I say. But you must believe this, that through me you shall never know real unhappiness if I can prevent it."

"And I say to you, Valerie, that I want you for my wife. And if my family and my friends hesitate to receive you, it means severing my relations with them until they come to their senses--"

"_That_ is _exactly_ what I will not do to your life, Louis! _Can't_ you understand? Is your mother less dear to you than was mine to me? I will _not_ break your heart! I will not humiliate either you or her; I will not ask her to endure--or any of your family--or one man or woman in that world where you belong.... I am too proud--and too merciful to you!"

"I am my own master!" he broke out, angrily--

"I am my own mistress--and incidentally yours," she added in a low voice.

"Valerie!"

"Am I not?" she asked, quietly.

"How can you say such a thing, child!"

"Because it is true--or will be. Won't it?" She lifted her clear eyes to his, unshrinking--deep brown wells of truth untroubled by the shallows of sham and pretence.

His face burned a deep red; she confronted him, slender, calm eyed, composed: "I am not the kind of woman who loves twice. I love you so dearly that I will not marry you. That is settled. I love you so deeply that I can be happy with you unmarried. And if this is true, is it not better for me to tell you? I ask nothing except love; I give all I have--myself."

She dropped her arms, palms outward, gazing serenely at him; then blushed vividly as he caught her to him in a close embrace, her delicate, full lips crushed to his.

"Dearest--dearest," he whispered, "you will change your ideas when you understand me better--"

"I can love you no more than I do. Could I love you more if I were your wife?"

"Yes, you wilful, silly child!"

She laughed, her lips still touching his. "I don't believe it, Louis. I _know_ I couldn't. Besides, there is no use thinking about it."

"Valerie, your logic and your ethics are terribly twisted--"

"Perhaps. All I know is that I love you. I'd rather talk of that--"

"Than talk of marrying me!"

"Yes, dear."

"But you'd make me so happy, so proud--"

"You darling! to say so. Think so always, Louis, because I promise to make you happy, anyway--"

He had encircled her waist with one arm, and they were slowly pacing the floor before the hearth, she with her charming young head bent, eyes downcast, measuring her steps to his.

She said, thoughtfully: "I have my own ideas concerning life. One of them is to go through it without giving pain to others. To me, the only real wickedness is the wilful infliction of unhappiness. That covers all guilt.... Other matters seem so trivial in comparison--I mean the forms and observances--the formalism of sect and creed.... To me they mean nothing--these petty laws designed to govern those who are willing to endure them. So I ignore them," she concluded, smilingly; and touched her lips to his hand.

"Do you include the marriage law?" he asked, curiously.

"In our case, yes.... I don't think it would do for everybody to ignore it."

"You think we may, safely?"

"Don't you, Louis?" she asked, flushing. "It leaves you free in your own world."

"How would it leave you?"

She looked up, smiling adorably at his thought of her:

"Free as I am now, dearest of men--free to be with you when you wish for me, free to relieve you of myself when you need that relief, free to come and go and earn my living as independently as you gain yours. It would leave me absolutely tranquil in body and mind...." She laid her flushed face against his. "Only my heart would remain fettered. And that is now inevitable."

He kissed her and drew her closer:

"You are so very, very wrong, dear. The girl who gives herself without benefit of clergy walks the earth with her lover in heavier chains than ever were forged at any earthly altar."

She bent her head thoughtfully; they paced the floor for a while in silence.

Presently she looked up: "You once said that love comes unasked and goes unbidden. Do vows at an altar help matters? Is divorce more decent because lawful? Is love more decent when it has been officially and clerically catalogued?"

"It is safer."

"For whom?"

"For the community."

"Perhaps." She considered as she timed her slow pace to his:

"But, Louis, I can't marry you and I love you! What am I to do? Live out life without you? Let you live out life without me? When my loving you would not harm you or me? When I love you dearly--more dearly, more deeply every minute? When life itself is--is beginning to be nothing in this world except you? What are we to do?"

And, as he made no answer:

"Dear," she said, hesitating a little, "I am perfectly unconscious of any guilt in loving you. I am glad I love you. I wish to be part of you before I die. I wish it more than anything in the world! How can an unselfish girl who loves you harm you or herself or the world if she gives herself to you--without asking benefit of clergy and the bureau of licenses?"

Standing before the fire, her head resting against his shoulder, they watched the fading embers for a while in silence. Then, irresistibly drawn by the same impulse, they turned toward one another, trembling:

"I'll marry you that way--if it's the only way," he said.

"It is the--only way."

She laid a soft hand in his; he bent and kissed it, then touched her mouth with his lips.

"Do you give yourself to me, Valerie?"

"Yes."

"From this moment?" he whispered.

Her face paled. She stood resting her cheek on his shoulder, eyes distrait thinking. Then, in a voice so low and tremulous he scarce could understand:

"Yes, _now_," she said, "I--give--myself."

He drew her closer: she relaxed in his embrace; her face, white as a flower, upturned to his, her dark eyes looking blindly into his.

There was no sound save the feathery rush of snow against the panes--the fall of an ember amid whitening ashes--a sigh--silence.

Twice logs fell from the andirons, showering the chimney with sparks; presently a little flame broke out amid the debris, lighting up the studio with a fitful radiance; and the single shadow cast by them wavered high on wall and ceiling.

His arms were around her; his lips rested on her face where it lay against his shoulder. The ruddy resurgence of firelight stole under the lashes on her cheeks, and her eyes slowly unclosed.

Standing there gathered close in his embrace, she turned her head and watched the flame growing brighter among the cinders. Thought, which had ceased when her lips met his in the first quick throb of passion, stirred vaguely, and awoke. And, far within her, somewhere in confused obscurity, her half-stunned senses began groping again toward reason.

"Louis!"

"Dearest one!"

"I ought to go. Will you take me home? It is morning--do you realise it?"

She lifted her head, cleared her eyes with one slender wrist, pushing back the disordered hair. Then gently disengaging herself from his arms, and still busy with her tumbled hair, she looked up at the dial of the ancient clock which glimmered red in the firelight.

"Morning--and a strange new year," she said aloud, to herself. She moved nearer to the clock, watching the stiff, jerking revolution of the second hand around its lesser dial.

Hearing him come forward behind her, she dropped her head back against him without turning.

"Do you see what Time is doing to us?--Time, the incurable, killing us by seconds, Louis--eating steadily into the New Year, devouring it hour by hour--the hours that we thought belonged to us." She added, musingly: "I wonder how many hours of the future remain for us."

He answered in a low voice:

"That is for you to decide."

"I know it," she murmured. She lifted one ringless hand and still without looking at him, pressed the third finger backward against his lips.

"So much for the betrothal," she said. "My ring-finger is consecrated."

"Will you not wear any ring?" he asked.

"No. Your kiss is enough."

"Yet--if we are--are--"

"Engaged?" she suggested, calmly. "Yes, call it that. I really am engaged to give myself to you--_ex cathedra--extra muros_."

"When?" he said under his breath.

"I don't know.... I must think. A girl who is going to break all conventions ought to have time to consider the consequences--" She smiled, faintly--"a little time to prepare herself for the--the great change.... I think we ought to remain engaged for a while--don't you?"

"Dearest!" he broke out, pleadingly, "the old way _is_ the best way! I cannot bear to take you--to have you promise yourself without formality or sanction--"

"But I have already consented, Louis. _Volenti non fit injuria_," she added with a faint smile. "_Voluntas non potest cogi_--dearest--dearest of lovers! I love you dearly for what you offer me--I adore you for it. And--_how_ long do you think you ought to wait for me?"

She disengaged herself from his arm, walked slowly toward the tall old clock, turned her back to it and faced him with clear level eyes. After a moment she laughed lightly:

"Did ever an engaged gentleman face the prospect of impending happiness with such a long face as this suitor of mine is wearing!"

His voice broke in the protest wrung from his lips.

"You _must_ be my wife. I tell you! For God's sake marry me and let the future take care of itself!"

"You say so many sweet, confusing, and foolish things to me, Louis, that while you are saying them I almost believe them. And then that clear, pitiless reasoning power of mine awakens me; and I turn my gaze inward and read written on my heart that irrevocable law of mine, that no unhappiness shall ever come to you through me."

Her face, sweetly serious, brightened slowly to a smile.

"Now I am going home, monsieur--home to think over my mad and incredible promise to you ... and I'm wondering whether I'll wake up scared to death.... Daylight is a chilly shower-bath. No doubt at all that I'll be pretty well frightened over what I've said and done to-night.... Louis, dear, you simply _must_ take me home this very minute!" She came up to him, placed both hands on his shoulders, kissed him lightly, looked at him for a moment, humorously grave:

"Some day," she said, "a big comet will hit this law-ridden, man-regulated earth--or the earth will slip a cog and go wabbling out of its orbit into interstellar space and side-wipe another planet--or it will ultimately freeze up like the moon. And who will care then _how_ Valerie West loved Louis Neville?--or what letters in a forgotten language spelled 'wife' and what letters spelled 'mistress'? After all, I am not afraid of words. Nor do I fear what is in my heart. God reads it as I stand here; and he can see no selfishness in it. So if merely loving you all my life--and proving it--is an evil thing to do, I shall be punished; but I'm going to do it and find out what celestial justice really thinks about it." _

Read next: Chapter 8

Read previous: Chapter 6

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